


Burning

by Tseecka



Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: Body Modification, M/M, Scarification, Scars, Self-Harm But-Not-Really
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-24
Updated: 2014-06-24
Packaged: 2018-02-06 02:43:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,752
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1841362
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tseecka/pseuds/Tseecka
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Axel never expected to find a flame he was afraid of. Then he met Roxas.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Burning

Axel was familiar with burning. He lived for it. The firey alignment of his personality gave him an affinity that he all too readily embraced. He ignored the pointed remarks others made, that the combination of burning, scalding heat and a self-destructive streak a mile wide was a dangerous combination for anyone to have. He loved it. The feel of the still-glowing metal of his chakrams, burning into the palms of his leather gloves, sending up the scent of charred skin. The biting, acrid taste of the wrong end of a cigarette, just on the very tip of his tongue. That lasted for days, sometimes, flaring up as he ate, drank, and spoke; he relished the reminder of the embers. The sensation of a tiny, intricately folded wire, heated to glowing and pressed, over and over to the smooth bare skin until it raised a welt, a brand of his own making. Just over the bone of his hip, where no one could see; where it wouldn't look unnatural to rest his fingertips, to press subtly against his marked flesh and feel, again, the agonizing spike of pain through the blistered skin.   
  
He'd begun a second, on the left side of his chest--the welts were barely raised--over where the books and stories said the heart was supposed to be.   
  
Pain was the closest he could get to feeling, to recapturing the errant memories that strayed into his head as he lay awake long into the night, of laughter and tears and the constant, unceasing outpouring of something from a place that was now empty and barren. And fire drew him in, tempted him, attracted him like the proverbial moth.   
  
His fire, though--it was destructive, consuming. It brought pain by replacing the healthy and the well, the whole, with bits of char that were missing in places, splintered away into coals or blown off in the wind as ash. It consumed.   
  
Roxas, though--he was different. Axel felt the same draw, the same undeniable, magnetic attraction to the light that burned all around the younger boy. His was different, though, without any appetite at all. It merely...shone. It drew its fuel from something Axel couldn't see, and emitted a stronger warmth and a brighter light than any flame Axel had ever managed to create. The others didn't seem to notice, but Axel couldn't even try to ignore it.   
  
The others also didn't notice Axel's complete avoidance of any physical contact with the newest member of their Organization.   
  
There wasn't a mark on Roxas' unblemished skin, no sign on injury or harm from the light that constantly and unswervingly consumed him. That was, Axel knew, no sure sign of safety. For all he knew, Roxas was a being composed of light itself, unable to burn in his own heat. But despite his constant need for validation, for the reminder of pain that he was, at the very least, still alive (if not, really, living), Axel found himself afraid to reach out for the light that had so entranced him.   
  
"You're looking at me again." Roxas disturbed his train of thought, leaning up against the wall beside the man he had grown to call a friend. Axel smirked, glanced sideways at him.   
  
"Watching," he corrected. "Gotta make sure you don't try to pull anything stupid again. There's a difference between looking, and watching."  
  
Roxas gave a little laugh. "And you were looking," he replied, throwing back a smirk of his own. Axel stared, slightly taken aback; then he smiled.   
  
"Yeah. All right. If it makes you feel better about yourself." He switched his attention from the boy, but still from the corner of his eye he could see the flickering light, brighter than any candle flame. He could feel heat washing off of his teammate, soaking into the black leather of his coat, warming his skin to an almost uncomfortable degree. Unconsciously, he dropped his hand to his hip, his fingertips surreptitiously pressing against the mark in his flesh. The familiar flash of life that spiked through his chest dispatched the sudden uncomfortable heat that had flared up in his chest.   
  
"...Why do you do that?"  
  
Axel stared at him again in surprise. Had the kid actually noticed? "...Do what?"  
  
"Touch your hip like that." Roxas nodded towards him, eyes glancing down at the sharp curve of bone that jutted out even from the heavy leather coat. "You do it a lot, I've noticed. Did you hurt yourself or something?"  
  
"Or something. There's a brand there. Pressing against it hurts--"  
  
"Then why do it?"  
  
"It's a good pain," Axel replied. "It sends jolts through my nerves, sets everything inside of me on fire. Reminds me of how I felt when I had a heart, you know? That deep, inner heat--way too painful to bear, but its so good. Jealousy. Hate. Anger, love, lust--all of that. Now there's just pure physical pain." He shifted uncomfortably; Roxas was staring at him, eyes fixed on the spot just below where Axel's fingers now lingered. Deliberately, the younger boy raised his uncanny blue eyes (they burned with that same light, and Axel, frustrated, dug his fingers into his skin) and held Axel's gaze with more intensity than a boy his age deserved to have at his command.   
  
"May I see?"  
  


* * *

  
In his allocated rooms--Roxas made a noise of approval, which Axel assumed to mean he was impressed and therefore, still stuck in the Rookie rooms--he sat on the edge of the bed, pulling up the second zipper on his coat. With the material pooled around his hips, he wriggled the waist of his pants down a scant couple inches to show the puckered skin on his hip. Roxas stared at it for a long moment, legs tucked up underneath himself where he sat on Axel's mattress. He made a non-commitant noise in his throat. Axel watched as the rich blue eyes followed the curves and bevels of the branded shape. This close...in this small, cramped room...his brightness was almost unbearable. Axel found himself shutting his eyes, his fingers, denied the comfort of his hip, finding solace instead in the lesser flare of pain from his chest.  
  
It was a complete surprise when he felt the upper zipper being pulled down, the close-fitting material peeling away from his bare chest. HIs eyes shot open, to see Roxas' barely two inches from his own. He had to shut them tightly again, and made to push Roxas' hand away, before he remembered that the boy was impossible to touch.   
  
"Is that where the other one is? The wires, on the table--they don't match this one." Axel felt his coat being pushed from his shoulders, the sleeves pooling around his wrists where he was surreptitiously trying to lean away from the younger. He could still feel those ice blue eyes boring into his skin. He was aware of sweat beading on his face, trickling down his neck; his physical heart, the one that kept the body alive and nothing else, was pulsing faster than it ever had before.   
  
"Please move away, Roxas," he asked hoarsely, was shocked to hear his voice in a begging plea more than a request. He felt Roxas' surprise, then felt the bed shift and realized Roxas was sitting above him, one knee to the outside of either leg, not touching him but only barely.   
  
"No," he answered, in as low a tone. "Axel. Why don't you want me touching you?"  
  
Axel drew in a shuddering breath. For the first time he could remember, he felt fear instead of elation at the nearness of Roxas' heat, his light. It was, he was sure, something that would not only cause immeasurable pain; it would destroy him, utterly, if he allowed it to make contact.   
  
"You burn," he whispered, eyes still shut tightly. "You burn, so much light. It's brighter, it's hotter than anything I've ever seen. It's like a white-hot flame, Roxas...I'm the only one that can see it, and if I so much as touch you, you'll burn me alive." He could feel the pads of Roxas' fingers passing barely above the brand on his chest, felt his knees shift just a little closer, still not touching, but only just. He was shaking now, he could feel it.   
  
"And you won't look at me because...?"  
  
"Too bright. Roxas...I love pain, I crave it, I need it, but...touching you would destroy me. It's like you're...like you're fire incarnate."  
  
 Roxas' next words were spoken so closely that Axel could feel his breath ghost, like scalding steam, over his cheeks, his nose, his lips. "That's where you're wrong, Axel. I'm not a flame." Axel was sure he could feel the scant hairs on his face, his eyelashes and eyebrows, burning away, as Roxas leaned a little closer. The bed squeaked. His lips actually brushed Axel's as he added, in the most intimate whisper Axel'd ever heard, "I'm a star."  
  
Then they were kissing, Roxas' mouth pressed hungrily against Axel's, his hand firm and flush against the brand on his chest, his knees touching Axel's legs--all points of possible contact. Axel felt the pain flare, intense, unbearable, just as he'd imagined. His arms barely managed to hold himself up, shaking with the pain. He forced his eyes open.   
  
It was unreal. There in front of him were Roxas' blue eyes, burning into his. They were, both of them, surrounded by a hot white light, but which was somehow tempered. Looking into those eyes, Axel was startled to feel wetness trailing down his cheeks. The searing heat shot through him again, lighting every vein on fire, and he felt it pool somewhere in the vicinity of Roxas' hand. He couldn't close his eyes, not even after Roxas broke the fierce hungry kiss that he had, at some point, begun to return. Unbelievably, he was still alive. He still felt the warmth flowing through his body, curled comfortably in his chest, and the tears flowed freely, as with someone who has barely avoided losing the most precious thing in the world.   
  
"Roxas," he whispered in wonderment, feeling something surge within him as he said the other's name. Roxas leaned forward, kissed the marks under his eyes, his forehead, his nose, then again lightly on the lips.   
  
"My light doesn't burn, Axel. It's shared." He reached for Axel's hand and laid it over where his own heart should have been.


End file.
